Researchers say that fragments of early experience (like family members or feelings of extreme happiness or sadness) are often combined with accumulated knowledge gained through conversations or photos to make up these memories. As a result, what a rememberer has in mind when recalling these early memories is a mental representation consisting of remembered fragments about their own childhood, instead of actual memories.

To come to this conclusion, researchers from City, University London, the University of Bradford and Nottingham Trent University surveyed 6,641 people. The participants were asked to examine their earliest memory in terms of content, language, nature and details, along with their age at the time. It was emphasised that they had to be certain the memory actually happened.

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The team found that over a third of respondents claimed to have memories from the age of two or younger while 893 people claimed to have memories from the age of one or younger. As previous research has indicated that the earliest memories people can recall occur around the age of three, the researchers concluded most of the respondents memories where ‘fictional’ as they were dated around a period when they are not likely to have been formed.

Interestingly, even though these memories are 'fictional', the person genuinely believes they happened.

"Crucially, the person remembering them doesn't know this is fictional. In fact, when people are told that their memories are false they often don't believe it," said co-author Martin Conway, a professor at City, University of London.

"[This is] partly due to the fact that the systems that allow us to remember things are very complex, and it's not until we're five or six that we form adult-like memories due to the way that the brain develops and due to our maturing understanding of the world," he added.